Stanford at confident best / Cardinal blitz No. 12 Ducks

Jorge L. Ortiz, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, January 12, 2003

Stanford guard Matt Lottich opened each half of Saturday afternoon's game against No. 12 Oregon by making a 3-pointer. After the second one, the Ducks might as well have told their bus driver to get the engine going.

The Cardinal were revved up, and there was little the visitors could do to stop them.

Playing with the energy and desire that characterized its previous two meetings with ranked teams -- both victories -- Stanford asserted its dominance from the beginning and went on to crush the Ducks 81-57 in by far its most impressive performance of the season.

In what has become a trend for a team with fragile confidence, the Cardinal started out strong and never relented, opening a 12-point lead in the first half and blowing it up to 24 shortly after the break.

"You're really able to tell which (Stanford team) has shown up in the first couple of minutes of the game," said Nick Robinson, who had 13 points and 11 rebounds replacing the injured Justin Davis. "If we're coming out playing really hard defense, hustling, then you know the Stanford basketball team that came out and played like tonight has shown up."

This club was not even a distant relative of the uninspired outfit that needed a furious comeback to edge lowly Oregon State two days before, or of the squad that lost to Montana in December. Instead, it bore a close resemblance to the team that knocked off Xavier and Florida in late November.

Oregon's Luke Ridnour passes to an open teammate while surrounded by Stanford's Matt Haryasz, left, Matt Lottich, center, and Nick Robinson during the second half Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003, in Stanford, Calif. Ridnour led the Ducks with 19 points in Oregon's 57-81 loss, becoming the 24th Oregon player with 1,000 points; he now has 1,014. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) less

Oregon's Luke Ridnour passes to an open teammate while surrounded by Stanford's Matt Haryasz, left, Matt Lottich, center, and Nick Robinson during the second half Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003, in Stanford, Calif. ... more

The Ducks brought the Pac-10's most efficient and prolific offense into the game, but they shot just 33.3 percent, got outrebounded by 19 and had their inside game nullified to such an extent that they simply gave up on it.

"For some reason every time we come down here we run into a buzz saw," coach Ernie Kent said after Oregon lost for the 17th straight time at Maples Pavilion.

Not only did the Cardinal (11-4, 2-1) succeed without Davis, but they received sparkling play from some unexpected sources. They had three freshmen on the court at the end of the first half, when they closed with an 8-0 run to go ahead 41-29.

Stanford then combined that spurt with an 11-0 rally to start the second for a 19-0 spell of dominance, going up 56-32.

The explosive Ducks tried to respond behind point guard extraordinaire Luke Ridnour (19 points), putting together a 15-4 surge that closed the margin to 59-46 with 10 minutes left.

That's when Robinson, a 23-year-old sophomore playing by far the best game of his career, came up with a couple of rally-stoppers. First he hit a jumper in the lane to give Stanford its first basket in six minutes, then he grabbed a defensive rebound that started a fastbreak culminated by another 3-pointer from Lottich (15 points).

Shortly after that the lead went back to 20, prompting the Sixth Man Club to serenade the Ducks with chants of "Overrated."

"We had people step up when things might have turned on us, and at least a couple of times that guy was Nick Robinson," Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said.

Robinson also played a decisive role in limiting small forward Luke Jackson,

Oregon's second-leading scorer, to a season-low seven points, more than 10 below his average. Jackson didn't find the mark in the second half until there was just 2:34 left, when the game was well out of hand.

Oregon (10-4, 1-3) didn't get much production either from the rest of its frontline, as Rob Little and the Stanford big men shut down the lane. The Cardinal blocked eight shots and so frustrated their counterparts that they turned the ball over a number of times.

Kent eventually gave up on the inside game and at one point had four players who stood 6-foot-4 or less on the floor.

"It's really discouraging for the post players to get their shot blocked," said Little, who had three rejections. "That's like a dis when you get your shot blocked, and the crowd gets into it. It's really a good thing to feed off of."